Almost? See Inigo Montoya

Had to chuckle when I read (identity withheld to protect the guilty from embarrassment) a recent reference to John Moses Browning’s Colt 1911 that read, “It’s an engineering masterpiece with a design that’s endured almost 100 years.” Almost? Browning began work on the specifics of the design around 1890, and the pistol was in Army field trials between 1907 and 1911, when it was adopted for use. That’s not “almost 100 years” but MORE THAN 100 years, no matter when one chooses its start date.

Should I blame common core math for the writer’s faux pas?

Good, Bad and Downright Ugly

I “buy” more than a few free ebooks. Book blurbs, reader reviews, and sample text allow me to filter many unworthy offerings, but some do slip through. And then there are the borderline examples. Well-written, for the most part, interesting stories (again, for the most part) with characters that seem more genuine than not (not that “genuine” is always good, when a young, semi-or-sub-literate writer is genuinely reflecting his/her own cohort *sigh*), etc., but with gaping holes in literacy, research, or understanding of a few basic concepts.

Many of the problems noted here could be easily mended were it not for the frequently overriding problem of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. It seems many writers don’t feel a need to have competent, literate line and copy editors (or are too chintzy to pay for such). After all, they have their attendance certificate (diploma) from some college or university, so that MUST mean they are literate and competent, and do not need to seek out someone who is literate and competent to line/copy edit their “masterwork,” right? Wrong. Even the most literate and competent writer can use literate, competent editing by a third party, preferably an adult. No, a real one.

The worst problems aren’t language or character development or plotting. No, the worst problems in a lot of writing in many of these freebies by millennial “grups” lie in their basic world view, their misunderstandings of human nature formed by living in a morass of media fantasy instead of

An example (I’ll name one author who deserves praise and not name another who tried really, really hard [#gagamaggot] to write a decent story but failed, “deserving” only a “participation trophy”): Many of the freebies I read are introductions to series. Good practice. . . if the intro is a good read. Some of them I read specifically to review for recommendation/disapprobation for my Wonder Woman who is always seeking new writers to appeal to her students, especially her 7th/8th grade students. This practice led me to read (for review) a book by Shelley Adina, “Lady of Devices,” a steampunk “romance” (NOT capitalized), where, for the first book at least, “romance” ~ “adventure,” as it once meant. I was so surprised by the quality of the writing (in all aspects–good use of English, good plotting, character development and descriptive narrative, etc., as well as a really sensible Victorian feel to the book that I have since read everything else Adina has written in the series,* and felt privileged to pay to do so.

Another book I just finished attempted to do what Adina accomplished, in the same genre, but the writer was both not competent in those areas where I praise Shelley Adina and apparently did not see the need (or was too cheap to pay) for competent, literate line/copy editing. On top of that, the writer committed the cardinal sin of placing “message” above story and periodically throughout the text ended up pontificating on points of the society she had designed with which she disagreed, instead of letting the story simply speak for itself. Bad writing, that, really bad writing.

And that was on top of presenting some basic concepts of human nature and relationships in what I have come to expect to be typical of jejune, shallow, millennial crybabies.

Sad. There were moments of sound grade “C” writing, with gusts up to “B+” on occasion, but I had to give the book a “One star that should be zero stars” rating and could NOT recommend it for young adolescents, as I resoundingly recommended the Adina books.

Seriously, most of these young writers really, really need to submit their work for correction and critique to literate, competent adults (NOT something they are likely to find among their circles of acquaintances) before releasing it into the wild.


*She’s also written some contemporary “juvies” directed toward (it seems middle school girls. I’ve not read those, but I did suggest that my Wonder Woman look into them for her libraries, given the quality of Adina’s steampunk books.

Prisoner Exchange in the Future?

So, backtracking Sean Penn’s movements during his clandestine meeting with “El Chapo” Guzman, infamous Mexican “drug lord,” led Mexican authorities to finally REcapture Guzman. Again. Now, Mexican law enforcement is investigating/mulling over the criminality of Penn’s acts.

But wait! There’s more!

The U.S. has filed an extradition request with Mexico for Guzman to stand trial for crimes committed in the U.S. And Mexico has already said the request meets the requirements of the extradition treaty between the U.S. and Mexico. Oh, why not? Mexico can’t seem to keep Guzman in prison (he’s escaped, what, three times?). Maybe the U.S. can.

But wait! There’s more!

Remember? Mexico ? investigating Penn’s acts? Imagine a prisoner swap: Guzman for Penn. Mexico trades a murderous head of a drug cartel for Sean Penn (’nuff said). We win that exchange.

As even ESPN Podperson, Dan Szymborski, notes, “Only Sean Penn can interview a murdering drug kingpin and somehow come off looking like the douchebag of the piece.”

Things Like This Tick Me Off

. . . And by now, y’all should know how hard it is to tick me off. *heh*

Apparently, USA cable is running an NCIS “marathon.” I walked in on an episode where a volunteer first responder–known almost universally in state laws as a “Good Samaritan” and in the federal Volunteer Protection Act that is similar to state Good Samaritan laws simply as a volunteer–is threatened with charges for giving first aid to three people involved in an automobile wreck where one she attempted to aid died.

I throw the bullshit flag on the whole premise. Good Samaritan Laws and the “feddle gummint’s” own VPA protect good faith efforts by volunteers from such bogus persecution.

Of course, nowadays, law enFARCEment and “persecutors'” offices regularly sneer at actual legal restrictions on their misbehavior, so I can understand how lame-a$$ed, ill-informed writers could come up with the story line, but since some states Good Samaritan laws go even further and require bystanders to give aid, programs like this that assert ONLY certified medical personnel could give trauma first aid could get folks in some serious trouble.

Continue reading “Things Like This Tick Me Off”

And the Survey Says. . .

“44 Percent Of Democrats Support Taking Refugees From A Fictional Country”

Much sneering and finger-pointing by leftards about the results of a “gotcha” question in a Public Policy Polling survey directed toward Republicans that had 30% of Republican voters polled supporting bombing Agrabah, a fictional country in the Disney film Aladdin.

Hmmm, not much in the Hivemind about a WPA Research poll that discovered that 44% of polled Dhimmicrappic voters would happily accept “refugees” from the same fictional country. (66% in the key Dhimmicrappic 18-34 y/o age range.)

Yeh, everyone knows Republicans have a lot of uninformed voters. Poll after poll demonstrates that Dhimmicraps just have a lot more dimwitted boobies.

Mock Material

Not feeling like streaming stuff. . . watching a syndicated re-run of Blue Bloods. Commercial on. Guy says “anabotics” when he means “antibiotics”. Eminently mockable. Would love to mock him in person. Because fun.

Undermining the Foundations

Ponder, if you will, all the times the feds have, of late, misused the 14th Amendment to impose restrictions on genuine rights, create licenses (that it mislabels as “rights”) and in general oppress liberty instead of using it correctly to protect legitimate, natural, God-granted rights. Interesting, eh? Turning constitutional provisions on their heads and destroying liberty seems to be something a majority of SCOTUS, for example, is quite comfy with.

Poisoning the well of freedom. Not a good thing.

More Mediacom Misbehavior. . .

. . .allowing me to have fun with the subliterate drones that Mediacom employs to lie to its customers.

I was incensed enough at Mediacom’s deceptive, unethical and outright evil behavior today that I had the opportunity to school a Mediacom customer *cough* “service” *cough-gag-spew* representative on the differences between obscenity, vulgarity and profanity. And yes, I made the poor, illiterate moron in the employ of The Evil Company listen to the whole thing. And when he insisted he had corrected the (34%) over-billing that was the proximal cause of THAT particular phone call, I made absolutely certain he knew that I chose not to believe him until I had documentary evidence in my hand, since everyone from Mediacom (except for our local service tech) has lied to me for years. Yes, everyone, even if they are just repeating lies they have been assured are truth.

Thing is? I told every single person from Mediacom I have talked to since it started strongarming me into installing their “DTAs” that this “billing error” would happen. All of them insisted it would not.

And ALL of them insisted that “federal law requires encryption of digital cable”–a flat-out lie, if the FCC is to be believed, since all its regulatory comments say only that cable companies encrypt digital content as an option. Lies, lies and more lies.

Mediacom, Sucking Dead Bunnies Through a Straw. IOW, Business as Usual.

Well, Mediacom is at it again. This quite apart from sending us 4 “DTAs”–digital jail boxes–that were ALL dysfunctional, and known to be so, according to the local tech who’s replaced 25 of them in the last couple of weeks with known-good MODELS from a different MANUFACTURER. No, this is something else: supposedly we’re hitting our data cap. Really unusual activity. Data consumption on the order of 3GB during a service outage is one clue.

Then, yesterday afternoon, after griping out yet another Mediacom Suckage Expert (A.K.A., “customer service representative,” “phone tech support person”) I DISCONNECTED our cable “modem” for 2.5 hours, reconnected and. . . more than 2.5GB of additional usage recorded.

Next? I then disconnected the cable “modem” for 16 hours. Reconnected and. . . yep. More usage, though less: only 1.6 additional GBs of data usage reported while our system was completely, physically disconnected from Mediacom.

Our neighbor, who has extremely modest Internet needs/usage has reported the same issue to Mediacom just this week. Mediacom, of course, says it’s all us.

Lies.

Local onsite support is better. The local support tech (I say “local”. Mediacom has him covering LARGE parts of 3 counties all by his lonesome) has had multiple encounters with folks supposedly hitting their data caps who simply aren’t, in all reality. Yeh, well, I just talk with folks around town, and my neighbor and I aren’t the only ones I know about.

Mediacom: asking the question, “How many customers can we screw today?”


Update: Strangely, after four hours of connectivity today, Mediacom’s data usage report has shown no increase in usage during that time. Yep. As ALWAYS, the problem is at Mediacom’s end of the pipe.